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[578]
However, Herod did not leave off importuning Pheroras, but proceeded
to force him to put away his wife; 1
yet could he not devise any way by which he could bring the woman herself
to punishment, although he had many causes of hatred to her; till at length
he was in such great uneasiness at her, that he cast both her and his brother
out of his kingdom. Pheroras took this injury very patiently, and went
away into his own tetrarchy, [Perea beyond Jordan,] and sware that there
should be but one end put to his flight, and that should be Herod's death;
and that he would never return while he was alive. Nor indeed would he
return when his brother was sick, although he earnestly sent for him to
come to him, because he had a mind to leave some injunctions with him before
he died; but Herod unexpectedly recovered. A little afterward Pheroras
himself fell sick, when Herod showed great moderation; for he came to him,
and pitied his case, and took care of him; but his affection for him did
him no good, for Pheroras died a little afterward. Now though Herod had
so great an affection for him to the last day of his life, yet was a report
spread abroad that he had killed him by poison. However, he took care to
have his dead body carried to Jerusalem, and appointed a very great mourning
to the whole nation for him, and bestowed a most pompous funeral upon him.
And this was the end that one of Alexander's and Aristobulus's murderers
came to.
1 This strange obstinacy of Pheroras in retaining his wife, who was one of a low family, and refusing to marry one nearly related to Herod, though he so earnestly desired it, as also that wife's admission to the counsels of the other great court ladies, together with Herod's own importunity as to Pheroras's divorce and other marriage, all so remarkable here, or in the Antiquities XVII. ch. 2. sect. 4; and ch. 3. be well accounted for, but on the supposal that Pheroras believed, and Herod suspected, that the Pharisees' prediction, as if the crown of Judea should be translated from Herod to Pheroras's posterity and that most probably to Pheroras's posterity by this his wife, also would prove true. See Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 2. sect. 4; and ch. 3. sect. 1.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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